| Americana, a.k.a. sepia-tinted glasses |
[13 Jul 2009|01:02pm] |
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music |
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Krypteria - Scream |
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I live in a former oil boomtown in the American Southwest that's home to 10,000 people. It's kept alive by a combination of a nearby military base and a couple of factories outside the edge of town. Fifteen miles away is a city of 100,000 people with far less interesting things in it than you'd expect for its population size. Other than that, it's nothing but small towns for a two hours drive or more in every direction.
The landscape is grassland - ugly, mostly, except for the two weeks in the early spring where everything's green and the wildflowers are coming up. Other than that, it's just a vast, flat expanse of brown grass punctuated by mesquite trees and cattle and wheat fields and disused oil derricks and the occasional ugly, dying small town. There are honest-to-goodness ghost towns scattered around the area.
In some towns, the local Wal*Mart is the only place to get groceries. Those are the luckier ones. Most of the small towns are little more than houses, churches, and a gas station or two. I'm not exaggerating.
A friend from a more metro area came to visit me last week and said upon arrival "You're right. There's nothing here. I thought you were exaggerating but you really weren't." So I gave her the grand tour of our historic downtown - all 3 blocks of it. No kidding.
Jobs here outside of the medical or law enforcement fields are scarce - even moreso in this economy, with the factories laying people off left and right. In the larger city next to the small town I live in, there are, no fooling, a couple hundred jobs open and a couple thousand people looking for work. The situation in my town is even worse. You'd be lucky to get hired at the local McDonald's without connections to the existing staff. I reiterate that I am in absolutely no way exaggerating.
And it's tempting to say, "Well, that's an isolated case." But there are lots of small towns in this country - hell, there are tons of them in this state alone.
And people like to say that I should just move somewhere else that would have more job opportunities and I ask how am I supposed to do that? I've got $4,000 to my name, give or take a few and no vehicle but my bicycle. I've got a liberal arts degree in a job market climate where anything that's not medical or finance or engineering appears to be pretty much useless unless you're really damn good at it. And I'm not.
Yeah, I live in that small-town, tight-knit community that certain people seem to think is "real America." I think it's that background Puritan spirit showing itself again - promoting the idea that living in a place with few opportunities and fewer cultural experiences builds character. Self-purification through deprivation. I hate that attitude. And I hate this place.
I look out over the eternally brown fields in the seemingly-neverending summer sun and I feel my life here stretching out over the horizon, an endless and pointless toil - like Sisyphus, pushing the same damn rock up the same damn hill every damn day. Get up, go to work, come home, try not to think about how unhappy I am with everything because if I do I'll break down (again).
And it's not that I don't think small towns should exist, or even that I begrudge other people's right to enjoy living in them. It's just that for me, it's not a warm, enjoyable, tight-knit community; it's a cage. Moreover, it's a cage filled with dangers. Here I am, a left-wing atheist with pacifist leanings in the middle of red-state America. Guns and Jesus (and crystal meth) country.
And, were it not for teh intertubez, I would be alone, alone, alone and afraid that I was crazy. Sometimes I still am. What do you do when you're miserable in a place that everyone around you seems to think is wonderful? You start to wonder if the problem is you. And, in a way, it is. I'm just not cut out for this place. Other people are; I'm not. People are different. But humans like conformity - especially ones living in small communities. That's just how human nature is. But it's also human nature to rebel, to strive for better, to want to boldly go where noone has gone before, et cetera.
I live in small town America. And I want out. I just wish I knew how to get out.
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| Awesome Feminist Moment of the day |
[12 Jul 2009|11:12am] |
So, I can't open jars. Really. I'm horrible at it. It's pretty much either sit there and struggle with it for 20 minutes or find someone else to do it.
So yesterday, I was with some friends - two guys and a woman - and I was struggling to open a jar of salsa. I gave up and said something like "Can one of you dudes open this for me?" because I happen to know from experience that these two particular guy friends are much better at opening jars than I am and I thought that my other friend was busy with something else. So my female friend takes the jar, effortlessly removes the lid, and hands it back. It was kind of glorious.
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| Victory and Defeat |
[10 Jul 2009|02:56pm] |
Victory: My mother actually volunteered to play Mario Kart with me yesterday. This is a good thing because lately I feel like every conversation with my parents is Serious Business about either money, employment, or both (both mine and theirs, in both cases.) And I kind of feel vaguely guilty about playing video games when I could be looking for another job or whatever, even though I know that I need time to relax and if I don't get it, I tend to have depression and/or anxiety spikes.
Defeat: I finally get a few work days where I'm not scheduled to work 'till close (i.e. after sunset, which prevents me from taking my bicycle since my town is poorly lit and devoid of sidewalks or bike lanes for the most part) and it's supposed to be over a hundred degrees all damn week. And I'm personally willing to bike to work with temperatures well into the upper 90s but over 100 is where I draw a line. At that point, I'm risking dehydration and heat exhaustion and skin cancer and stuff and, while I'd do it anyways if I didn't have another choice, I happen to have a currently out of work parent whose car is available for borrowing. So biking will have to wait until the heat wave subsides a bit, because even though it's only a few miles, 105 degree temperatures! no shade!
Note: Why is it that people who ride motorcycles are "bikers" and people who ride bicycles are "cyclists?"
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| Status |
[27 Jun 2009|09:58am] |
I've been slacking on the blog front lately as I've been trying to balance work with the social life that I seem to have despite not doing much to facilitate it. (Honestly. I now have 3 entirely separate groups of friends. How the hell did that happen?)
My mental state is in that place where I'm fine as long as I don't actually think about the current direction of my life and since stuff's still pretty tough on the ground. (Here's something for you. The place where I live has ~300 jobs open and ~7000 people looking for a job. No lie. So even though my college degree says I theoretically could do better than a minimum wage fast food job, reality is that having a job at all makes me one of the lucky ones. )
Also I've been trying to come to terms with the idea that I'm:
a) developmentally behind my peers
b) in possession of a significantly different way of looking at the world than most other people.
Both of which I've kind of realized for some time but not really thought through the implications of. And I'm trying to process all of this in the larger context of "What do I want in my life?" and "What makes me happy?" and all that stuff that you think about when you're... a recent college grad living with your parents and working fast food in small town middleofnowheresville.
Also, my Inner Puritan has been griping at me because, in the face of 100+ degree weather, I've chosen to borrow a relative's car to get to work rather than biking. Because, yes, I'm physically capable of biking the ~3 miles, even in the heat but it's probably better not to, since I don't tolerate extreme heat particularly well and I do need to be able to work when I get there.
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| More depression stuff |
[09 Jun 2009|03:16pm] |
I had a bad breakdown yesterday - really bad, the kind where it gives me a migraine and I burst into tears every time I try to talk and all I can do is just go to bed and try to sleep it off. My parents caught it and were worried about me and their efforts to help only made it worse and worse because they just don't understand what it's like (and they seem to still think that I can just "snap out of it" when I really, really can't.
And today isn't much better. I'm still really on edge but I'm at least functional. (I work today; I didn't yesterday. I seem to be good at holding it together long enough to break down on my own time, which means that the people who live with me tend to see the worst of it. One more reason I really want to get my own place.)
And today I remembered something that has been a source of comfort to me: the Tao Te Ching.
I don't speak or read any Chinese so I'm unfortunately bound to translations and I wouldn't call myself a taoist by any means but when I found the Tao Te Ching, it was... like deja vu. Like reaching an unfamiliar place but feeling like it's home.
Best to be like water,
Which benefits the ten thousand things
And does not contend.
It pools where humans disdain to dwell,
Close to the Tao.
Live in a good place.
Keep your mind deep.
Treat others well.
Stand by your word.
Make fair rules.
Do the right thing.
Work when it's time.
Only do not contend,
And you will not go wrong.
Says the translation I have*. I've believed something very much like that all my life - even when I was a devout fundamentalist Christian.
And when others talk of struggling and overcoming and beating problems (or "enemies") into submission, I think "Best to be like water..."
(Not in every situation, mind you, but in the general way of things.)
*This one, for interested parties.
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| The Life of a Gamer |
[07 Jun 2009|11:48pm] |
So I waaaant Sims3 but the official site says that my video card runs it "poorly" and my computer isn't exactly a powerhouse in the RAM department . Do I really want to spend $50 on something that might not even be playable on my system? (It runs Sims2 reasonably well but it gets pretty sluggish on the higher settings and it runs Oblivion just well enough to make it playable and no better, so...)
Probably not. *sigh*
Oh well. It's not like I don't have a whole stack of other games to play already. Several of which I haven't ever even beaten.
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| On Health at Every Size, etc. |
[04 Jun 2009|01:11pm] |
So, a lot of my relatives are fat people. The subject of fatness comes up sometimes in conversation and many of my relatives are perpetually kinda-sorta on or thinking about diets and losing weight.
I've been thinking about this in conjunction with the infamous "freshman fifteen." Because I'm the oddball that actually lost weight when I went to college and moved out and started doing my own cooking. And not just from starving myself or poor nutrition, either. No, it turns out that,left to my own devices, I eat healthier and exercise more than I tend to do when living in my parents' house.
BUT there's an interesting observation in this.
Upon moving out, I:
-Stopped driving and started walking or biking everywhere I went
-Switched to largely vegetarian, mostly low-fat eating habits
And I lost weight. But here's the thing: I lost about 12 pounds. Over the course of two years. Doing a lot more exercise and eating a lot better than I had been previously.
Yep. If YOU have a similar genetic makeup and you give up your car and walk a couple miles a day, in conjunction with eating the equivalent of only two (vegetarian) meals a day, YOU TOO might lose...a dozen pounds. And then stop. By exercising quite a bit more and eating a lot more health-consciously (in the "am I getting the nutrients I need?" kind of way) than I was previously, I've gone from... a BMI of "normal but close to the overweight line" to .... a BMI of "normal but fairly close to the overweight line." And I've stopped losing weight, even though I'm now doing even more exercise because I'm biking farther to work than I was to classes but I'm not really eating any more than I was previously.
So, given my own personal experiences, I'm more sympathetic toward the "weight is largely genetic and most people have a 'set point' weight that they tend to stay near, no matter what they do" people than toward the "calories in, calories out! If you would just EXERCISE MORE, EAT LESS you can MELT AWAY THE POUNDS!!!!!111eleventy!" people.
Because nobody wants to hear: if you make major lifestyle changes you could lose up to a dozen pounds! But that's what my experiences suggest.
And it annoys me to watch my relatives (mainly female but not all) beat themselves up for not being able to become skinny. It annoys me even more when they compliment me on losing weight. I'm like, do what you need to do to be (really, truly) healthy, yeah, but then stop worrying so much about it. (Of course, it's not that easy. I know that perfectly well since my self-esteem in other areas is just as bad and all the reason in the world doesn't fix it...)
Naturally, I blame society. (Ah, [present-day, American] capitalism: "eroding people's self-esteem in the name of the almighty dollar.")
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| On normalcy |
[04 Jun 2009|12:19pm] |
Every once in awhile, something happens that throws my own mental processes into a sharper light.
For example, it continues to baffle me that my coworkers actually like me. I just don't expect people that I meet in non-social settings to take any personal interest in me. I don't know why, that's just the way my mind works. So the fact that my coworkers not only like working with me, but also want to associate with me outside of the work setting continuously surprises me even though it probably shouldn't (because we're all a bunch of nerds.)
This was clarified to me yesterday when one coworker of mine jokingly remarked that another coworker had reprimanded them for a jokingly unkind comment they had made to me. I made it clear that I hadn't been offended by the original comment and that was more or less that, but it got me to thinking.
I don't expect other people to defend me from perceived slights, nor do I expect derogatory statements made toward me to be actual jokes. I expect them to be the kind of "jokes" that are actually said in earnest, but which the teller will insist are not if I try to call them out on their unkindness. Why I expect this, I'm not exactly sure. It's probably something leftover in my psyche from primary and secondary school, where I didn't get along with anybody in my class and, as a perpetual outsider, was often made fun of in order to reinforce in-group solidarity. They were never particularly cruel to me but I certainly didn't fit in and they never really approved of me, although they would act like my "friends" when it was convenient. Again, I don't think their intentions were particularly bad. They were children and children aren't very good at recognizing long-term consequences of actions. I was quiet and withdrawn and smart and "weird"; they ignored or poked fun at me - perfectly normal childhood social interaction on all sides.
But I still wonder if that experience isn't part of the reason why I still hold suspect the motives of people who want to befriend me and continue to be surprised and bewildered by those who seem to genuinely enjoy my company.
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| Generation gap |
[31 May 2009|08:20pm] |
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Concerning house hunting in the event of a possible move:
I say (albeit rather less articulately than this, I admit) : [Dearest Parental Units], do you think that maybe you could look at some houses that are near the bus lines or within biking distance to some possible jobs for me? I don't like driving and I care about preserving the environment and reducing our dependence on foreign oil and as such, I would like to delay buying a car until I can get a decent used hybrid at the very least. Also, I don't want to wipe out my entire bank account on a car right now and be left with almost nothing in the event of an emergency (of which our family has endured several in the last few years.) I am willing to deal with the inconvenience of walking, biking, or taking the bus in order to uphold these other priorities.
They hear: "I don't think I'm ready for the responsibility of having a car."
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| Moving in Slow Motion |
[29 May 2009|02:11pm] |
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On days like this, when my depression hits hard and just getting out of bed takes effort, it feels a little bit like everyone around me is moving on fast forward.
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| On Being Weird |
[28 May 2009|11:28am] |
So a coworker asked me if I was gay yesterday.
Wait. Let me explain.
I'm the opposite of touchy-feely. I very, very, very rarely actually want any physical human contact. So I can come across as standoffish to really huggy people, of which said coworker is one. So the workplace chatter somehow got onto the topic of hugging and this somehow turned into me trying to explain that, no, I don't really like hugging people but I do it when it's socially mandated like at family reunions and stuff, because I understand that it's important to other people.
This prompted the coworker in question to ask me something like "But what about if you had a [significant other of the opposite sex]?"
To which I replied with "I don't want one."
"Ever?" asked my coworker. And I confirmed it. After some comments to the tune of "That's weird," said coworker asked me if I'm gay.
It kind of surprised me that it's the first time I recall that anybody's really asked me. I see a lot of what's supposed to be "essential" to people of my sex as the performance art it is and want no part in it and to certain people, that comes across as gay.
And I didn't want to do that stupid "Oh, no, I may be opposed to physical and emotional intimacy and the entire idea of the formation of exclusive pair-groups, but I'm not gay (notthattheresanythingwrongwiththtat)" thing that straight people do sometimes. (Because, honestly, I'm pretty sure that "No, I'm not asexual. I have a sex drive, I'm just weirded out by the idea of sex with other people." is... much more unusual than homosexuality is.)
So I tried to express the idea that, no, I'm (more-or-less) straight, I'm just really and truly a loner in a lot of ways without coming across as homophobic. Sadly, I don't remember exactly what it was that I said.
This, of course, brought about a "crazy cat person" accusation, while I patiently (or so I like to think) tried to explain that, no, I don't want constant animal company any more than I want constant human company.
It's not that I want to shut myself off from the world and never interact with people, it's that I prefer to engage with other people on my own terms and in my own time, where possible and I like a lot of solitary downtime in between bursts of social activity. I don't hate people, I just don't like it when they're there all the time and my need for a certain amount of solitude and my aversion to extended physical contact are stronger than my sex drive.
Yeah, I know, it's weird. So I have this whole long list of other reasons I usually give for not dating. Things like "I want to focus on my career right now," and stuff, but really, deep down, I just don't want to. I don't want or enjoy that kind of closeness with people. I prefer friendships of the "we get together and do stuff once a week or so" variety when it comes to human company. I like to talk to people who share my interests about those shared interests, but the idea of sharing everything with one person feels oppressive to me. I understand that this sounds totally backwards to most people, but, dammit, most people's ideas about this stuff sound backwards to me.
So yeah, my sexuality and views about relationships are pretty unusual. I know. But I don't need people to try to "fix" that; I just need for people to go "Well, that's kind of weird but if it works for you then I guess that's okay."
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| To a certain parent of mine: |
[25 May 2009|03:18pm] |
To a certain parent of mine: I wish you would stop calling me lazy.
Look, I have depression, okay? And I'm very much an introvert. And I need quite a bit of time to myself, doing what looks like "nothing" to you to recharge my mental batteries and get to anything resembling mental stability. Not unlike the person I got the other half of my DNA from.
So I would really appreciate it if you would stop with the grudgingly tolerant attitude towards me that isn't exactly helping my depression and just accept that I need quite a bit of time to recharge my mental batteries and as a result of this, I like to pick my battles so far as day-to-day responsibilities go and I'm never going to be able to do as much as you do without serious mental consequences. And stop telling me I'm lazy.
I'm not lazy, I'm mentally ill andit's hard enough dealing with that without you telling me that I'm lazy because of it.
Thanks.
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| Destiny, schmestiny |
[16 May 2009|09:43am] |
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music |
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Krypteria - Bloodangel's Cry |
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I graduate from university today. It feels, in some way, like standing on the edge of a precipice and preparing myself to jump off.
I always knew that I would go to college. I've always done well in school, always been one of the smart kids. But I never gave much serious thought to what would come afterward - not until very recently.
I guess I always thought that it would work itself out, that opportunities would present themselves. They haven't. There's a life lesson for you, if you like.
So while I do feel some pride at the fact that I'm managing to graduate with honors in 4 years, despite my frequent depressive episodes and other circumstances, I still feel that this was always inevitable. As all my friends and family tell me how proud they are of me for doing this, I can't shake the feeling that it's no big deal, really, except insofar as I now have to find something else to do.
(I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I'm not a student anymore.)
I suppose you could say that I'm having a sort of crisis of identity. If I'm not a student and I don't have a "real job", then what am I? (I have a standing invitation to stay at my fast food job, for which I'm glad but "diploma-holding fast food worker isn't exactly an identity I take much pride in.)
There's probably an interesting point here about how identity is bound up with one's career but damned if I can find it.
For all of my life that I can remember, this day has been the inevitable conclusion toward which my life has been moving. The thought of what comes after is still strange to me.
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| Life Lessons |
[12 May 2009|06:20pm] |
So, following my last post, I thought about what life lessons I have learned during my college years. Here are a bare handful of them.
It doesn't matter if you're a sucsessful engineer who has saved and invested diligently for the future all your life. You might get cancer, followed by surgical complications relating to dealing with the cancer, followed by a worldwide recession which causes you to deplete your life savings and become dependent on social security by the age of 50.
It doesn't matter if you're a good Baptist housewife who did what you always thought you would and found a good man with a good job to marry and who helped him diligently save and invest for the future while working hard raising your children. Your husband might get cancer, forcing you to take three years out of your own life to take care of him and then go out and get a factory job at the age of 50, in order to help put your children though college.
It doesn't matter if you're a bright kid and a good student who works hard and graduates Summa Cum Laude from a good, albeit not especially prestigious university. You might graduate during a worldwide recession with the "wrong" major and have no job opportunities that don't include the words "minimum wage."
Yep. Life is tough, unexpected stuff happens, et cetera, et cetera. I believe I've been throroughly schooled in that particular life lesson.
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| On selfishness |
[12 May 2009|10:57am] |
So, this article starts out sympathetic to us '09 college graduate but then veers off into this tangent of "But graduating in a recession and getting a terrible job or no job at all is good for them because they need to be knocked off their high horses."
To which I have to say: frack that.
This might be one of those "it's not about you" things for me, since I never expected to get an amazing job straight out of college. I did expect to have some job prospects, which I currently don't.
You know what kind of crazy selfish desires I have for a job? Here ya' go. I want a job that:
-pays a living wage. And by living, I mean, enough for"food, shelter, minimal clothing, medical costs, and high-speed internet. (And by "food," I don't mean eating out every night, and by "shelter," I mean a nice little one-bedroom apartment somewhere.)
-is in the general vicinity of a mid-sized city with some kind of public transportation
Yeah. That's pretty much it. I'd like to make enough to live off of and I don't want a 2-hour commute from the exurbs. Gee, those class of '09 kids are just so damn selfish. They want it all straight out of college, huh? It'll just be so good for me to be stuck in a small town, living with my parents and working a dead-end fast-food job for awhile after I've spent all this time and money getting my B.A. Show me what the real world is like (i.e. incredibly depressing. I believe I've already learned that lesson. Several times over.)
Yeah, frack that.
You want to tell me about how my chronic depression and anxiety is not, in fact, a detriment, but a valuable learning experience too?
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| Star Trek |
[10 May 2009|05:52pm] |
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Star Trek: heavy on the action sequences and CG, light on the moral dilemmas, but containing more than enough awesomeness to be a very fun summer opening movie. I would definitely watch it again.
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| On dreams |
[09 May 2009|10:44am] |
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music |
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Annie Lennox - Songs of Mass Destruction |
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Dreamed that the novel I'm writing was a class assignment and due at the end of the week. Woke up thinking "Shit, I have to write an entire novel in a week. I'm going to fail this class!"
Which is kind of odd. Usually right before exam week, I have dreams about needing to study for an exam for a class I forgot to attend all semester.
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| On self-perception |
[08 May 2009|11:50pm] |
So I tell myself "But you're perfectly good with people, Ira.* You call your parents all the time and you went out to see a movie with a friend just last week."
And then I remember that my typical weekend night involves watching movies from Netflix alone in my dorm room and I like it that way.
So apparently a common feature of Aspergers (which I currently suspect may run in my family and am thus collecting pro and con evidence for) is being bad at small talk. What does it mean if you're the opposite? I'm great at small talk. It's the continuing-relationship talk that gives me problems. Like remembering that when people ask "How are you?" they don't actually want to know. Or not being quite sure which topics should be off limits with which people. Or not being able to tell whether people actually like me or not.
I'm good at meeting people, when I try to. I'm just not so great at developing relationships with them.
*Except that I don't actually talk to myself using my nom-de-blog. 'Cause then I would just be crazy. Or Batman.**
**Which would be crazy awesome.
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| States of Mind |
[08 May 2009|12:45pm] |
So basically, I've got 3 states of mind: "I've got this," "meh," and "Panic! Panic! Panic!" (Well, with bonus "too depressed to care" sometimes thrown in for variety)
Thing is, I don't really panic in the kind of situations you would think people panic in. As long as I know there's some kind of emergency procedure to be followed, I'm pretty much fine. I can deftly handle such things as preparing for an ambulance to rush a family member to an emergency room or finding out that my connecting flight has been changed and I now have to sprint through the airport to make it to the new gate by boarding time, and so on.
No, it's when I don't know what to do that I panic. Like the whole job market thing right now. I don't know what I want to do or even how to go about looking for a career-starting job, really, or what people with my major get hired doing or any of that stuff. That's panic-inducing for me. To the extent that I've actually broken into tears of frustration while talking to people about it a couple of times. Because I just don't know what to do.
But panicking about it is a terrible thing to do because it keeps me from getting anything done. So I'm trying to work on it.
Also, I tried putting sugar in my coffee because I need to be able to fit my remaining sugar into a smaller container for more convenient transportation when I move back in with the parental units. I can now state quite definitively that no, I don't like sugar in my coffee. I just like milk (or appropriate milk substitutes. Mmm, soy) in my coffee. [Insert "latte-drinking liberal" joke here.]
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| La vie continue |
[07 May 2009|10:25pm] |
This is the part of the blog where I make a humorous observation in order to convince myself that I feel better about my life than I actually do.
Here's one: I saw three near fender benders today. Wait, that's not humorous at all.
Geez. I think I've gone through like 4 mood swings today. Happy! Depressed. Happy! Depressed. Bleh. I don't like end-of-school-year craziness. It throws off my groove.
I will console myself with the knowledge that I'm going to see Star Trek this weekend. Doesn't really matter whether it turns out to be good or terrible, it ought to at least be amusing either way.
I briefly considered recruiting some friends (okay, okay, friend. Singular. So sue me) to go to the movie dressed up in Star Wars costumes in order to try to start a nerd war.
In high school, I probably would have done it. Now... eh, not sure it's worth the effort.
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